Under the Jamaican Moon (Katy Marshall Romantic Mysteries Book 1)

by Sheila Lee Hall

  She had been lying down for only a few minutes when a nurse poked her head around the door frame. “Miss Marshall, you have a visitor.”

  “Hello,” he said, “I’m glad to officially meet you. I think we met a wave or two ago. My name is Felix.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . .

  The clinic nurse had compassion for Katy. She loaned her clothes and made arrangements for her to stay in the vacant half of the duplex that is normally occupied by one of the two Japanese chefs. The resort had always employed two chefs from Japan, but the youngest of the two had returned to his native country. Consequently, the new chef would not arrive from Japan for another seven to ten days.

  Katy felt utterly defeated before leaving the clinic — she had no passport, no credit cards, no money and no cell phone. In fact, anybody she knew did not know where she was at that moment. The older Japanese cook had come to her rescue when he came to show her to her new quarters. “I will help you any way I can,” he said. “Just call me Al-ho.”

  The chef quarters were in a duplex behind the main lodge building. The Bali Hai Resort covered almost the entire western end of the island. The Europeans had originally settled in this area because of its scenic location and good beaches. This area also had no mosquitoes due to a strong west wind. Consequently, there was only an occasional case of Yellow Fever.

  The eastern lower end of the island had been settled by African slaves. Bouts of Yellow Fever had decimated the population at various times, but the slaves always returned to that part of the island. Cemeteries were frequently built on top of each other at various times, with subsequent tropical growth between the various settlement periods. This part of the island was now mostly deserted due to rumors of zombies roaming around between grave stones and tropical vegetation.

  Katy had questioned Al-ho about the zombies. “Surely nobody believes they exist,” she said. Al-Ho rolled his eyes and insisted they did. “I have seen them,” he said.

  Katy, however, had one very important question she had held to the very last. “Do you know a guy by the name of Felix? I talked to him in the clinic for several hours. Does he have any girlfriends?”

  Al-ho would only smile. “His life centers around golf. He’s always going somewhere to play in a golf tournament. He doesn’t have a permanent place on the island. Somebody is always lending him their cabin or villa when they leave the island for a short time. Right now he’s in cabin 42.”

  “Oh”, Katy said, “Where is that located?”

  The main lodge was a low, spread-out, one-story building, finished in a motif that resembled something from the South Pacific. It had a huge heart-shaped pool near the front lodge entrance. The “V” of the heart held the island’s bar. Cabins and expensive villas were located throughout the tropical vegetation and rock outcrops that surrounded the main resort building. The main building contained thirty to forty interior rooms, as well as the restaurant, and a big bar and lounge.

  Al-ho had assured Katy that if she helped in the restaurant, she would have plenty of food and would not starve to death on the island.

  Katy did not have to wait long for action on her rescue. That afternoon an agent from the Jamaican Customs Service turned up to interview her. He had already contacted the captain of the Blue Dolphin which was in anchorage in Kingston Harbor. Her personal items had been placed in a storage locker, but would be on the next helicopter flight. Sam Kutsun had already left the ship and the captain didn’t know his location.

  That evening Katy had been trying to become accustomed to her surroundings when there was a knock on her door. A lodge employee was standing there with a suitcase. “Are you Miss Marshall? I have your suitcase.” A helicopter had just arrived at one of the expensive villas that had its own helipad. Katy was delighted, everything was intact.

  Katy settled down in an overstuffed chair near the bed to think who she wanted to call, but the cell phone batteries seemed to be dead. She would not be able to call Mary Jo or anybody in her office tomorrow. She picked up several old Kingston Independent Gazette newspapers and was startled to read the front page article about her accident.

  As she thumbed through the newspaper, she suddenly came across the article about an oil man from Denver losing his wife by drowning. Katy sat upright! Sam Kutsun was on this island. She was now considered to be his wife? What was going on? Apparently he did not know she was still alive.

  The newspaper items had Katy pacing the floor until well after midnight. She was now so upset that it was difficult to think about sleeping. She tried reading several books that the last chef had left there. One book — Geologic Odyssey, A Journey Through Earth Science — caught her eye. Thumbing through it, she read on one page about five hundred million gallons of toxic chemicals being injected into the subsurface of a big oil and gas field during “fracking” operations.

  “Right on,” she thought, “and Sam Kutsun was right in the middle of it.” As the petroleum geologist she had interviewed said, “These oil companies aren’t bonded, so in twenty to thirty years when all these toxic chemicals seep into the fresh water aquifers near the surface and severe health problems result, it will be the taxpayers who will get stuck with all the medical claims.”

  Katy became even more upset after thinking about this probability. The clock had struck 2:00 a.m. and Katy was now sitting at a table trying to eat. Al-ho had brought over some Japanese tea and other items to Katy before he had closed up for the evening. As Katy thought about her situation, she wondered, “What am I doing here on Zombie Island, eating goat cheese and crackers and drinking Japanese tea at 2:00 a.m. I must be crazy.”

  The suitcase suddenly toppled over again. She had put the suitcase upright several times that evening and now got out of bed to do it again. As she pulled it by the handle, it seemed heavier than it should be. As she sat on the edge of the bed, it suddenly dawned on her that maybe somebody was trying to set her up for running drugs!

  Getting up, she rooted through several drawers in the kitchen and finally found several screwdrivers. Lifting the suitcase onto the bed, she found what she thought she would find. The bottom screws holding the pull-handle to the suitcase could be removed. She finally found a usable screwdriver and removed both ends of the handle from the suitcase.

  Both ends had been plugged with some kind of wax. She hammered a small screwdriver into the ends of the handle. As she pulled out the small screwdriver, small white pills poured out of the handle. “Well,” she said to herself, “I guess that answers that. These little white pills of crystal meth must be worth thousands of dollars.” It really looked like somebody was trying to get her arrested for running drugs.

  After careful consideration, she poured all the crystal meth down the toilet, and refilled the aluminum tubes with soap crystals. A candle re-melted the wax so it looked untouched.

  Katy carefully shoved several chairs and a table against the door. All windows were carefully checked. “I think,” Katy announced to herself, “I will finally get some sleep.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . .

  She had guessed wrong. With only several hours of sleep, Katy was up at 5:00 a.m. She wanted to get to the beach where Felix was surfing. She removed the two chairs and table from the door, but suddenly stopped to consider where she was going. If she was going to see Felix, she wanted to make her best possible impression. Digging through her suitcase, she found the shortest cutoffs she had. When her mother had seen them, she had called them — “The manhunters.” The only thing she had to do now was to find cabin 42.

  The trail to the beach was very narrow and winding, and in the dark it was very hard to follow. When she reached the beach, it seemed to be deserted. Walking along the beachfront a voice came out of the darkness, “Are you looking for someone?” It was Felix!

  Katy had tried to be surprised, but she knew it wouldn’t work. “Oh, hi Felix, I wa
s wondering where you went surfing. Is this the area where you rescued me?”

  Felix had to grin. He had been expecting her. “Yes it is. It was off this beach, which is the only area on this entire island which is suitable for surfing. It actually is a restricted beach zone because it is part of this ten-thousand-dollar-per-night villa that occupies this part of the island.”

  Katy was stunned. “What do you mean by a ten-thousand-dollar-per-night villa? Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not. Actually it was not a lifeguard as reported by the newspaper, but rather a famous movie star that morning that helped rescue you. How does that make you feel?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “This resort has some ten-thousand-dollar-a-night hideaways where rich people come from all over the world to be left alone. They want seclusion. They don’t want their photo in the newspapers or magazines. They just want to do ‘their thing’, whatever it happens to be. If they just want to walk naked on the beach with a blonde on each arm, they can do it here.”

  “I suppose you won’t tell me the name of the famous movie star who helped save my life?”

  “Unfortunately, he just left the island on a helicopter. He has been occupied in other ways. He just took the third blonde who was here this week with him when he left.”

  “I’m getting confused. What do you mean by the ‘third blonde’?”

  “Katy, you and I live in different worlds. There are people like you and me, and then there are the very, very rich people who have almost anything they want.”

  Katy stood contemplating his answer. “Well, yes, that is true.”

  Felix stopped walking. “Did you ever hear of renting a ‘starlet’?”

  “No, I haven’t. What is a ‘rented starlet’?”

  Felix started scratching his head. “You do realize that there are in Hollywood many young attractive women from Iowa, Kansas, and other rural localities who come to Hollywood to make their fortune — only they are not successful with their career ambitions. They are only waiting for their big break. They don’t dare go back to their rural communities a failure.”

  “Yes, I heard that rumor.”

  “OK, if you have run out of money and are working in one of the fast food places for eight dollars per hour, would you be interested in making five thousand dollars per weekend for making yourself available. In the process, have a very nice vacation in the Caribbean in a villa which even has a butler?”

  “Well, I suppose there are some men who take advantage of these opportunities.”

  Felix’s grin could now be seen in the morning light. “Listen, I have seen a lot of women renting these expensive villas with the same thing in mind. Does that really surprise you?”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  Katy decided to be more specific. “OK, so why are you here?”

  “My world is golf. I have a lot of fun; meet a lot of interesting people, travel the world, plus people are always letting me stay in one of these villas when they leave. A lot of them are private. They don’t want their villa to be vandalized if they are gone — not that it would happen on this island. All people are screened before they come here. Anyway, why should I get tied down by marriage?”

  Katy smiled. “But, won’t you get tired of this way of life someday. You are not going to be able to play golf all your life. Maybe if you took an interest in somebody who had a good-looking pair of legs, you could really get quite interested. Isn’t that what you told me when I was in the medical clinic — that you were a leg man?”

  Felix started to grin even more. “Well, I have to admit, when I placed you over my shoulders to shake the water out of you, I did see that you do have a pretty good looking pair of legs.”

  Katy considered she had now made sufficient progress with Felix. “Why don’t we have breakfast together? I have unlimited dining privileges because I told Al-ho I would help with the dining room, as well as doing some hosting.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Katy was quite satisfied with the two-hour breakfast buffet. She felt that she was really getting somewhere with Felix. Oh, it had taken almost the whole time to get him to stop talking about some aspect of golf. She had listened to him talk about the MOI of putters, jumbo-headed golf clubs, open and closed club heads, multi-layered golf balls, extra-length drivers, jumbo grips, the natural golf swing, vertical versus horizontal golf swings, hybrids versus golf irons, cup tees, adjustable club heads, and several she couldn’t remember. Oh, she did suddenly remember, there was one about the virtues of different kinds of golf shoes.

  Finally, she got him to start talking about relationships. He was just getting to discussing his views when the waiter mentioned that it was about time to start the clean-up process in the restaurant. Their meeting had gone past 10:00 a.m. Felix agreed that they should have dinner together that night as he was trying to eat only twice a day. He thought that eating three times a day was starting to affect his golf swing.

  After Katy had retired to her duplex apartment, she noticed that the Kingston Gazette newspaper was still open to the article about the Denver oilman losing his wife. In her attraction to Felix, she had forgotten about Sam Kutsun. It was time to start figuring out who would know more about Sam Kutsun.

  As she sat nibbling on goat cheese and crackers, there was only one person she could think of that might be more forthcoming than Al-ho. The old Japanese cook had indicated that he only kept his job because he saw no evil, heard no evil, and knew no evil. She had queried him about some photos hanging on one of his walls, but he seemed reluctant to discuss them. The photos had apparently been taken using the star-scope that sat on the back porch area of the main lodge. She could swear that one of the blurred photos had what looked like a zombie in it. The star-scope also looked down on one of the heliports near one of the expensive villas on that side of the island.

  Andrew had to be the one to talk to about Sam Kutsun. He was the bartender at the island bar in the big pool area. He had been there over a year and obviously had some idea of the goings and comings of the resort. Katy considered him to be her next target. She didn’t consider herself a beauty queen, but had finished second in two beauty contests.

  Andrew had gone to Yale at one time. Whether or not he had flunked out or was just trying to find himself, was not something he was willing to discuss. Katy told him to put a Mai Tai for him on her tab, but he said she didn’t have a tab. She was not officially on the guest registry. “Fine,” Katy said, “I will buy you one anyway.”

  “Yes,” Andrew said, “I know of Sam Kutsun.” He came there several times a year, each time with what seemed like a different wife. The last one was named Helen, he thought, but wasn’t quite sure. It was his understanding that she had drowned.

  Katy became quite curious. “Was it some kind of accident here at the resort?”

  “No”, he said, “I think she fell off the Blue Dolphin. They never found her after she disappeared.”

  Katy was stunned! “What happened to all the other women?”

  Andrew was noncommittal. “Oh, I don’t know. You hear so many rumors. You don’t know which ones are true or whether somebody has been drinking too much.”

  “I understand Sam Kutsun is here at the resort right now. Which cabin is he in?”

  “Sam Kutsun! He doesn’t just stay in any cabin. He goes big-time. I understand he is in one of those big expensive villas, one of those ten-thousand-dollars-per-night units that the resort rents. The rumor is he just hit it big with the slots. He claims to have taken some casino for five million dollars.

  “So, what does he do? Just place the villa on his tab?”

  “Search me. I understand he never has any problem paying it off.”

  Katy had a sudden thought and swam back to Andrew. “Tell me, has anybody around here even
mentioned seeing a zombie, or even a big fish they thought looked like a small submarine?”

  “Yeah, some fishermen saw something like that on the other side of the island, but nobody believes them.”

  “You mean the eastern end of the island.” Katy wanted to make sure she had the correct information.

  “Yeah, like I said, they saw stuff like that on the other side of the island, the eastern side.”

  . . . . . . . . . . . .

  Katy had arranged with Al-ho to have a small alcove set aside for her dinner with Felix. To achieve that, she had arranged to work extra hours the next weekend. Al-ho had also promised to prepare a special fish dish that he knew Felix loved. Although Felix seldom drank alcohol, Al-ho also knew of a rum drink that Felix would never turn down. For the dinner, Katy made sure that she was dressed for the occasion.

  The dinner had gone especially well. Felix had not mentioned one word about golf the entire dinner. Not only that, he also downed several drinks. Katy now used the occasion to tell him how thankful she was to him for saving her life. “Why didn’t they spend a quiet night on Sunset Beach where they could commiserate about where their lives were going, just you and me,” she said. “Sometimes we have to explore our lives to give meaning to it. If nobody interrupted, they would be able to communicate with the universe.”

  Felix gave it much thought. “OK,” he said, “Let’s do it. What time would be appropriate?”

  After some thought, Katy said “Why not midnight?”

  The gift shop was still open. Katy spent almost an hour selecting the finest beach blanket she could find. The Mexican ones were all harsh cotton. Finally, she located one that had some alpaca wool in it, very nice and soft. Sunset Beach was close to a mile from the resort, but the blanket should not be too heavy to carry. It should be an easy walk along a nice trail. The moon would also be bright that night.